


lie still, sleep becalmed

by snagov



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Hand Jobs, M/M, Smut, improper application of magnetic theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:49:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25296454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snagov/pseuds/snagov
Summary: If you've ice to be handling, you should see a master.
Relationships: Thomas Blanky/Henry Collins
Comments: 16
Kudos: 45
Collections: Fingerbang #3





	lie still, sleep becalmed

_Open a pathway through the slow sad sail,_  
 _Throw wide to the wind the gates of the wandering boat_  
 _For my voyage to begin to the end of my wound,_  
 _We heard the sea sound sing, we saw the salt sheet tell,_  
 _Lie still, sleep becalmed, hide the mouth in the throat,_  
 _Or we shall obey, and ride with you through the drowned._  
\- Dylan Thomas, Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed

* * *

_October 1847  
HMS Erebus _

Beneath. Far beneath, he has gone where no one goes. 

The waves, which have been lovely, dark, and deep, now only bring thoughts of cold and the fish-eaten dead. Henry Collins has dark curls and dark shadows beneath his eyes, staring out into the far wall's oak paneling absently. It's not the wardroom that holds him but the thought of measurements. How many fathoms from the lower deck to the orlop, from the orlop to the ballast, from the ballast to the deep? He is drowning already, even if there is air. The water surrounds him, it's only a matter of time.

Henry stares, his brow furrowed, eyes absent and black as coal.

"Alright there?" A rough voice says. Henry blinks, looking up. The wardroom is empty but for he and Tom Blanky, _Terror_ 's own Ice Master. The meeting of the masters had adjourned early, Mr. Reid taking his leave. Henry realizes he’s lost track of himself again, staring aimlessly into the stove and balling his hands into white-knuckled fists.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re a shit liar, lad.” 

"It's my mind. It's not mine.” He’s quiet a long moment. “Not any longer.”

Tom watches him, quiet and considering. He rubs a hand over his chin, stubbled with grey and black. “You familiar with magnets?”

“The basic principles, yes.”

“Then you’ll know that up here, nothing is as it should. Compass might know north from south everywhere else. But up here, even the strongest go a bit skeltered.”

“How do you stop it?”

Tension is thick in the air. Tom is slow to answer. “External forces.”

“Show me,” Henry whispers, looking up. His hair in his face and his heart between his teeth. Lines cover Tom’s face like a net. Years in the strange north have left their mark. Tom looks at him with hooded eyes and a set mouth. Henry hasn’t been warm since he’d been set below the waves. He hasn’t peeled the sight of the dead man from his retinas. When Tom wraps a hand around his knee, he feels blisteringly warm. The spinning stops. For now. As if a bar of iron had been set near a compass. Which way does the needle point? He cannot tell but, for once, it doesn’t spin. 

“If you're certain."

“I’m certain. Show me.”

“Come here, settle yourself.” Tom pats the space between his spread legs. When Henry takes his place, buffeted by the man’s thighs, there’s just enough room. As if he’d done this thousands of times, known exactly how much give to allow. He breathes heavily, dangerously hot and hard in his trousers. “Take your prick out,” Tom murmurs, running a hand into the back of Henry’s dark curls. His breath hot on the back of Henry’s neck. 

A few buttons, the shift of a shirt, and Henry flushes dark as his cock stands darkly red and thick in the shadowy room. He hisses as Tom wraps one rough hand around the base, rubbing a calloused hand up and down the underside, tripping over the veins and brushing over the leaking slip of the head. Impossibly hard and taut-skinned, like a bloated thing ready to burst. (A dead thing, soaked and floating.)

“Steady on. Stay with me,” Tom whispers into his ear, moving his hand and wiping the past from Henry’s mind. Henry keeps his mouth shut, keeps the whimpers in. Want reduces the world to your body, to the ache between your legs. What does he want? A steady heartbeat at his back. An even voice, hands that have dug through ice. A voice that can say _I’ve been here before, I’ll take you across the frozen land. I’ll take you home, take you back._

He hisses as Tom speeds up, fire on the back of his tongue. 

“Oh God,” he murmurs, clenching his teeth. His head falls back. For once, instead of empty air or a cold pillow, he finds a home on a warm shoulder. Tom’s other arm wraps tightly around his stomach, His practiced hand working Henry steady. Steady steady steady. Never too fast, never too slow, never giving into the spinning. 

As regular as iron.

“That’s it, duck, keep your mind there, whatever does it. Some lass, some pretty doxie, quim all wet as she sees you. A fair lad back home, yeah? If he keeps you warm at night.”

“ _Tom._ ”

A pause, the ice master’s hand slows. 

“Please,” Henry begs.

“Hush, I’ve got you.”

Henry bites off a half-sob, something ugly in his chest and scalding fire in his skin, burning him clean. “Don’t - don’t stop.”

“Go on, boy, there’s a lad. Spill on me, it’s alright. Do as you're told. Just there -“ Tom drags his thumb over the crown of Henry's cock, sliding in the leaking wetness. Henry twitches, fists finding their way to Tom's thighs around him, gripping tightly at their hold. He leans backward and there's a quick, steady heartbeat against his shoulders, something viciously hot and hard against his hips. "You're a sight for a great bloody cockstand, aren't you then?"

Henry cries out silently, his mouth wide and desperate. “Christ.” He's never sucked a cock before, never thought of it, yet Tom's prick is as unforgiving as iron and Tom's hands are pulling his hair to move his head just where it should be. And Tom's watching the door of the wardroom and has an eye on the ice and for once, someone's got the number of the deep. 

He comes in a great white fury, screwing his eyes shut and stuttering into that steady, firm hand. “Better out than in,” Tom whispers, his strong fingers milking the white come from his cock. "Skell the seed, lad. Yeah, all over, just like that."

How long has it been? He feels drained. Henry breathes heavily, looking down to where Tom still has him in hand, gnarled knuckles and greying hair painted with a terrible mess of himself. At length, he falls forward, buttoning his trousers up, slotting himself into place. He glances to the wardroom door while Tom wipes his hands with a handkerchief. The door hasn't opened. No one has come. Safe, still. 

"All right then?" Tom asks. Henry nods. His chest hammers. He doesn't trust his shallow breath to speak. "The needle gets spinnin' for you, come and see me. We'll get you fixed up, right as rain." Tom says, half a gleam in his pale eyes. He rests a hand on Henry's wide shoulder and rights his cap, bound across the ice for _Terror_.

You cannot expect the same rules to apply in the far north, where the compasses lose track. Sleep doesn't come to him tonight, just as it never does. But Henry walks the deck in the long night, breath puffing into clouds, looking not to the swallowing, hungry deep but to where _Terror_ sits, steady as a lodestar, on an ice-becalmed sea.

  
  



End file.
